


Harrington-Wing (Backstory)

by Mel_and_Christy



Series: Harrington-Wing [1]
Category: Gundam Wing, Honor Harrington Series - David Weber
Genre: Death, Language, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 03:38:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mel_and_Christy/pseuds/Mel_and_Christy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gundam Wing crossed with David Weber's Honorverse. <em>We're nuts</em>. Oh well. XD We're writing important bits of backstory first, to avoid the need to fill 'em in later, so please enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Three characters reach a crossroads in their life.

Mike Howard leaned back in his station chair, propped his feet on the one spot on his console where he wouldn’t kick any controls, adjusted his sunglasses and closed his eyes in blissful relaxation. The _New Broom_ had just dropped out of hyper; in a few hours, they’d be in a parking orbit around Telmach, at which point his first officer would be taking over and he, Howard, had an appointment with that little family restaurant tucked away in a corner of the customs station’s commercial sector. Fresh food, **fresh** , real vegetables that had been grown in real dirt and never come within a mile of a freeze-dryer, cooks to whom the word ‘reconstituted’ was an insult… his mouth was watering already.

He was considering the all-important question of dessert when his happy reverie was interrupted by a raucous alarm from the communications board. “Well, shit,” he said conversationally, not moving. “What fuckery has the universe decided to inflict on us this time?”

“Distress signal,” his communications officer said grimly. “It’s a delayed Dutchman squawk.”

Behind his glasses, Howard’s eyes snapped open, staring blankly at the bulkhead. _One of ours,_ he thought, going cold.

The first order a pursuing pirate would give a cargo ship was always to shut off any distress signal their transponder might be sending. Once the pirate had taken what they came for and were safely out of missile range, of course, the cargo ship could turn their transponder back on and signal for help… if the pirates had left anyone capable of doing so. If they **hadn’t** , a ship that had been attacked on the edge of an out-of-the-way system could drift unfound forever.

Sweeper ships had an extra feature built in to their transponders. If they were used to send a distress call, and then turned off without a security code being input, they would wait eight hours and then automatically switch back on to send a ‘Dutchman’ signal -- _ship is drifting, requires immediate assistance_ \-- giving any survivors at least a slim chance of being rescued before their air and power ran out.

“It’s the _Whisk_ ,” the officer went on miserably, and Howard swore, kicking back from his console and slamming his chair upright.

“What the **fuck** \-- what the **hell** kind of cargo did they think they were carrying?! The _Whisk_ takes **mail** ferGodsake, not valuables, not spare parts, nothing a fucking pirate can **use**! Are those fuckers potting couriers for fun now? Is this the braindead set’s new-fangled replacement for tin cans and a pellet rifle? Fuckers should shoot themselves in the foot, ha, no, torpedo to the **pricks** , that’d teach those inbred cretins not to play with big boys’ toys--”

His mouth was on autopilot, hands moving over the controls to send the _New Broom_ onto a new heading at maximum acceleration as he continued to swear, stream of consciousness invective against an uncaring universe.

“--dickless bastards probably don’t have anything there to shoot off anyway. And somebody get on to Telmach local control, ask them what the flying fuck they’ve been doing! The _Whisk_ had to have been putting out their initial distress call at least eight hours ago, why the fuck haven’t Telmach gotten there yet?!”

\----------

Time crawled. The drifting hulk of the _Whisk_ was only barely inside the Telmach system’s hyper limit, almost 120 degrees around the ecliptic from where the _New Broom_ had hypered in; it took just over four hours to reach her, even with Howard cursing his engineers into taking most of the safety interlocks off the engines. (They held firm against removing **all** of them once the inertial compensators started to flutter.) The local government--

“Fucking excuse for a government you mean, bunch of retired pirates themselves, assholes can’t be buggered doing a damn thing so long as their own precious persons aren’t touched, and you **know** they tip the pirates off to good targets to buy their own immunity!”

\--sent an answer back to Howard’s question -- which had been diplomatically rephrased by his communications officer -- nearly an hour into the trip, causing a new spate of cursing.

“No point?! No fucking **point** going after a Dutchman? Like hell there’s no point, you damn well go after them because somebody might be alive and even if they aren’t they’ve got family wanting to know for sure! Put those fuckers on a shuttle and shoot out the engine, drop them somewhere all alone signalling a Dutchman and see if they think there’s a point to answering one then! --And why the fuck didn’t they answer the **first** distress signal, huh? Ask them that! Ask them why the fuck they sat on their hands with their thumbs up their asses for eight hours **before** the fucking Dutchman signal, hey? In those words, Ricardo, no prettying it up this time! In those exact words, you ask those **fuckers** why the **fuck** they sat on their **fucking** hands with their **fucking** thumbs--”

\----------

“Oh man,” the navigator said sadly, looking up at the main screen. Howard grunted.

The _Whisk_ was tumbling slowly against the starry background, scorchmarks and ruptured plating showing where drive nodes had overloaded. Gaping holes in the hull exposed a mangled cross-section of cargo spaces and passageways, dimly illuminated by the distant sun; they snapped into bright contrast as someone brought up the _New Broom_ ’s close-work spotlights and trained them on the wreck.

Ricardo was hunched over his console, running every scan he had sensors for and searching all the communications bands for even the faintest signal. “No lifeboat beacons,” he sighed eventually, sitting back in defeat. “No suit beacons. No suit radios, either, and I’m not getting any power or temperature readings off the ship, Howard. I’m sorry.”

“Call Myron and tell him to suit up,” Howard growled, levering himself up out of his chair. “Lexie too. I’m heading over.”

“Who was on the _Whisk_?” the navigator asked quietly as the door snapped shut behind Howard, glancing over at Ricardo. “I haven’t been keeping track.”

“The twins, Carlos and Christian,” Ricardo said glumly. “Along with Aelfrida and Manon, and most of the usual bunch who ship out with them… and their kids.”

“…Oh, man.” He turned back to the main screen, looking at the wreck of what had once been a bright and happy ship, remembering faces. The Sweepers were a fairly large and growing organisation, but you still got to meet everybody sooner or later, and the kids had been memorable; bright eyes and impish grins, blond and brown heads always together as they plotted something. Then he remembered something more and stiffened, eyes going wide. “Oi, wait, wait-- those kids-- isn’t Howard their **godfather**?!”

“Yep.”

“Oh **fuck**.”

\----------

//What are we looking for?// Lexie asked, voice sounding a little tinny over the suit radio. //Given that you seem to have a destination in mind, I’d like to know if I should be keeping an eye out for anything in particular-- beyond the obvious.//

Howard grunted acknowledgement, pulling himself along the darkened corridor. Jagged-edged bits of wreckage were complicating their passage, and it took care and attention to avoid getting snagged and stuck -- or worse, puncturing a suit, tough though they were. “That’s right, you’ve never shipped on the _Whisk_ , have you? We bought her second-hand, but Carlos and Aelfrida added a few things that aren’t on the plans when we refitted her.”

//Huh.// She paused for a moment, giving Myron a hand past a half-shut emergency airseal door, jammed when the main power went out, then retransmitted. //So we’re looking for what, again?//

“We ain’t **looking** for shit,” Howard growled. “We’re **heading** for the bridge.”

//Gotcha.//

The next airseal door was closed, but the (self-contained, battery powered) readouts were blinking yellow, showing vacuum on both sides; it opened fairly easily when Howard braced his feet against the bulkhead and heaved, sliding back on its rails.

There were bodies on the other side, three drifting corpses in shipknits, caught without suits when the atmosphere blew out.

//Sneaky undocumented refits sound better all the time, you know?// Lexie said tightly, reaching out to gently stop one of the bodies from spinning. //Maybe we could add sidewall generators next time, provide some extra protection. Or how about something that goes ‘bang’?//

“We thought about it,” Howard said almost absent-mindedly, feeling his eyes burn with unshed tears. Myron was silent, catching another corpse and carefully nudging it to the side of the passageway for Lexie to tape it to the wall, awaiting retrieval. “You got any idea how much that stuff costs? And not just for installation either, or cash cost. I mean energy budget to run ‘em, how much mass they add that you’ve got to pay to move.”

//…Too much, huh?//

“Yeah. Aelfrida ran the sums a few different ways. If you add on enough stuff to actually be useful in a fight, it ups your running costs and drops your cargo capacity far enough that the ship’s not economical to run any more. If you keep it down to what you can support and still run at a profit, you’ve got a sidewall that might as well be wet cardboard and one or two popgun-sized lasers that’ll just piss a pirate off. Nice idea, though,” he conceded, staring grimly down the ruined corridor. “ **Damn** nice idea.”

When they reached the bridge, Howard headed straight for the communications console, letting Lexie and Myron deal with the few crew corpses not strapped into their seats as he twisted himself around until he was hanging upside-down, head and half his torso vanishing underneath the blank displays. “Where’d they hide that damn thing again… fucker better not be stuck,” he muttered, poking at the smooth metal until a tiny hatch opened and he could reach in to push a recessed button. “Ha!”

// **Now** what? Myron, d’you know what he’s doing?//

//Nope.//

“This ship,” Howard finally explained, puffing a little as he hauled himself back out and rotated back to normal orientation to use the keyboard, “has a panic room. We don’t advertise it, ‘cause it’s useless if everyone knows about it, and it only holds a couple of people, ‘cause if half the crew is missing when pirates get on board, the bastards’ll look for them -- but the girls figured…” He sniffed, scowling. “Aelfrida and Manon reckoned that if worse came to worst, a chance at saving two was better than a certainty of losing everyone.”

The button had brought up the emergency power, and one lonely window appeared on the main display; nothing but a blinking cursor waiting for input. Holding himself in place with one hand, Howard carefully typed in a string of numbers and letters and pushed ‘enter’, and was rewarded by the wall panel behind the captain’s chair popping open to reveal a half-sized personnel airlock. The status lights were glowing a clear green.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Howard breathed, and only realised he’d spoken aloud when he heard the echo in his helmet. “ **Somebody’s** in there. --Myron, Lexie, I’m going in, see if we need to bring a rescue bag or what. You… you take care of the bridge crew, could ya? Move them into the ready room,” he went on, finally letting himself look at the bodies. “If it’s the kids in there… these are their parents.”

The airlock was cramped, barely big enough for one adult, and he tried not to fidget as it pressurised. The display finally cleared, warning lights all flicking from yellow to green, and the inner door opened to reveal a tiny room--

\--and a flechette gun pointed straight at his head, held rock-steady in the hands of a nine-year-old blond boy, gray-blue eyes hard. The seven-year-old behind him was clutching a taser, darker blue eyes wide but determined.

“Whoa!” Howard put his hands up, then slowly reached over to his helmet and depolarised his faceplate, switching on the external speaker at the same time. “Hey, Solo, Duo. Do me a favour and don’t shoot me, okay?”

The blond blinked, gun wavering off aim. “…Uncle Howard?”

“Yeah. You two okay?”

Solo sniffed, lowering the gun and rubbing at one bruised cheek. “Banged up a bit. We didn’t manage to get into the restraints before the gravity went.” Almost as an afterthought, he clicked the safety on the pistol and tucked it inside his jacket; Howard breathed a silent sigh of relief.

“It was really fast,” Duo agreed, waving the taser for emphasis and automatically correcting the slight spin the movement started. “Mom grabbed us and shoved us in here and like a minute later bang, the lights went off and the gravity went out and everything was rattling and… nobody came to get us,” he finished, voice going small and frightened. “She said somebody would come and get us as soon as it was safe, but nobody came and nobody came and--”

“Hey, I came, didn’t I?” Howard interrupted hastily, reaching to pat the younger boy clumsily on one shoulder. “Sorry it took me a while, but I came as fast as I could and I’m here now, right? Now, d’you two have your suits?”

“No.” Solo sniffed again, wiping his nose on one sleeve. “Aunt Manon said we didn’t have time to get them even though they were right there. Dad was yelling when we came through the bridge, too, he said the pirate had already launched…”

_Which explains why nobody had time to get into their suits,_ Howard thought grimly. “Well, we’ll have to fetch them then, or bring a couple of rescue bags over from the _New Broom_ to get you out of here. We’ll sort it out, okay? You’ll be out of here soon.”

They nodded, and watched him solemnly as he switched his suit radio back on to call Lexie, and didn’t ask what had happened to their parents. They knew.

\----------

Back on his own bridge, with Solo and Duo down in the messroom being fussed over by Lexie, Howard settled into his chair and stared at the _Whisk_ , still centred in the main display.

“What now, boss?” Ricardo asked quietly.

“Recovery first,” Howard told him. “Get a working party together and bring all the bodies back; we’re taking them home. While that’s happening, I want you to strip the computers. Squeeze every byte of information out of them, anything that could identify or track that pirate. We’ll pass it to every Sweepers ship and all the anti-piracy patrols in Silesian space. I don’t care who, Manticoran, Andermani, Havenite, everybody gets the full download. Then call in the salvage squad. I don’t think there’s much left salvageable on the _Whisk_ , but we’re taking it all out of this system anyway. I’m not leaving a single damn hull plate behind for Telmach to salvage.”

“Got it,” Ricardo nodded, turning towards his boards.

“One more thing.”

“--Yeah?”

Howard’s voice was as cold as space. “When this is done, no Sweeper’s ever coming back here. I’m putting the Telmach system under embargo. We don’t ship for them. We don’t ship to them. And private ships are a separate matter, but if there’s a Telmach government-registered ship putting out a distress call… we don’t hear them.

“See how they like it.”


	2. Important meetings and milestones.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little language, a trace of angst, and a lot of happy.

The clerk of the court had an annoyingly nasal voice, but at least he didn’t mumble and Howard figured he hadn’t been hired for his diction anyway.

“Court is convened in the matter of custody of Solo Ramirez y Maxwell and Duo Ramirez y Maxwell, orphans born in this jurisdiction holding dual Beowulfian and Manticoran citizenship, lately residents of the independent station _Toolbox_ ,” the clerk droned. “Interested parties: closest known living relative, Angelina Maxwell, great-grandmother of both children, citizen of Manticore resident in this jurisdiction; godfather and legal guardian according to the parents’ wills, Mike Howard--”

“Michael, surely?” the judge asked mildly, peering at him over her screen.

“Mike, Your Honour,” Howard said, hitching partway up out of his seat and nodding to her. “It’s not short for anything. I generally go by just Howard anyway.”

“I see. Do continue.”

The clerk cleared his throat and went on. “ **Mike** Howard, citizen of Manticore, resident and primary shareholder of the independent station _Toolbox_. Both interested parties present.”

“Well.” The judge peered at Howard now, a gesture that really needed pince-nez glasses for her to be looking over. “And what is the basis of your petition, Mister Howard?”

“Request to formally adopt the ki-- uh, boys, ma’am.” Howard stood again, shoving his hands into his pockets in an effort to keep from fidgeting. “I’m their godfather, and their parents all wanted them to stay with the Sweepers if anything happened, and… well, I don’t just want to be their guardian.”

“Ms Maxwell?”

The boys’ great-grandmother actually **looked** old, or at least older; Howard figured she was probably a second-generation prolong recipient, same as him. Everyone else present looked about twenty-five or even younger, whatever their actual ages. _Bunch of wet-behind-the-ears brats…_

“I have no objection,” she stated firmly, standing in her turn. “I did all the parenting I planned on a long time ago, and while I’d be happy to take the boys in, I don’t think it would be fair to take them out of the environment they were raised in without clear need.”

“Young children do adjust,” the judge noted mildly. “I do wish to take their desires into consideration, however. Solo? Where would you prefer to live in future?”

Solo stood, imitating Howard, chin up stubbornly. “We’re Sweepers,” he said bluntly. “We grew up on the _Toolbox_ and we don’t wanna go live with dirtsuckers-- uh, no offence,” he added hastily, glancing sideways at his great-grandmother. To her credit, she seemed to be stifling a smile. “I’m sure our great-grandmother is a nice lady and all, but we never even met her face to face before, you know? And we’re ship kids. Ma’am.”

“I see.” The judge was also smiling, Howard noted with relief. “And your brother Duo?”

“Cousin,” Solo, Duo, Howard and Angelina Maxwell chorused together.

“I beg your pardon. Cousin?” Blinking, she referred back to her screen. “As I understand your surnames, Ramirez would be your father’s first surname and Maxwell your mother’s?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Solo nodded.

“And Duo has… the exact same surname combination?”

“Our dads were twins,” Solo shrugged.

“And our moms were cousins,” Duo chimed in.

“Which is why they’re both my great-grandchildren, not just one of them,” Angelina confirmed.

“I see. Very well. Duo? Where would you prefer to live?”

“With Solo,” he said flatly.

“Apart from that,” the judge said patiently. “Would you prefer to live here on Sphinx with your great-grandmother, or with Mister Howard?”

“With Uncle Howard,” Duo said without hesitation. “All my friends are on the Toolbox, and I just got big enough that I’m allowed to go out on the ships sometimes. I’m a Sweeper too, I don’t wanna give that up!”

“I see,” she said again, smiling openly this time. “Well, since all the interested parties are in agreement, especially the most interested parties, I see no reason to deny the petition before me. The Court hereby rules that Solo Ramirez y Maxwell and Duo Ramirez y Maxwell may be legally adopted by Mike Howard,” she concluded, picking up her gavel and rapping sharply on her desk.

“ **Awesome**!” Duo cheered, flinging his arms around Solo and Howard together. “Hey, that means you really are my brother now, right?”

“Guess so,” Solo agreed, grinning and hugging back.

“…Given this result,” the judge went on after spending a few minutes pretending to be absorbed with something on her screen, “it would probably be a good idea to get the official documentation taken care of now -- or at least as much of it as we can manage in one sitting,” she amended wryly. “I believe my docket is clear for the afternoon?”

“It is, Your Honour,” the clerk confirmed boredly.

“Then if Mister Howard is also free--? Yes? Good. The more we get done today, the sooner you will be able to return home.”

“Ah, I should call someone to come get the kids,” Howard said hastily, emerging from a three-way embrace.

“I can show them around town,” Angelina suggested, smiling at the boys. “I may not be keeping them, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to get to know them a little before they leave again. If that’s all right with you? We can go to the Forestry Service headquarters and see the treecats,” she suggested temptingly.

Both boys looked at Howard, and he grinned. “Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Ms Maxwell. Okay kiddos, you behave for your great-gran, okay? Don’t give her trouble, and don’t get into trouble either!”

“We’re **Sweepers** , Uncle Howard,” Duo said scathingly, rolling his eyes as Solo smirked. “We know how to stay out of trouble.”

Of course, being Sweepers, they knew how to get into it as well.

* * * * *

Quiet Trickster dangled upside-down from a high branch, holding on with four true-feet while his hand-paws waved his current ‘toy’ above the frustrated human it belonged to. He bleeked in amusement as the human’s voice wavered between cajoling and demanding.

“Damn it Loki, I **need** that! My break’s gonna be over in ten minutes and if I go back without my hat I’ll get written up for being out of uniform! C’mon, don’t be an ass about it! Fuckin’ little practical joker fuzz-brain, see if I ever slip you celery again…”

 _=What are you doing to the poor two-legs now, Quiet Trickster?=_ a familiar mind-voice asked, and he swung himself up onto the upper side of the branch, looking around for his friend.

_=Dark Wanderer! I did not know you were heading back into this area.=_

_=Neither did I.=_ A shadow dropped from a higher branch to land next to him, yellow eyes glinting in sharp contrast to his nearly-black fur. _=I was headed north, but a couple of days ago I changed my mind. Call it a whim,=_ Dark Wanderer sent, mind-voice dry with self-deprecating humour.

 _=Because you normally plan your journeys **so** far in advance,=_ Trickster sent back, just as dry. Sitting up on his haunches, he plonked the purloined hat onto his head, pushing the front up so he could peer out from under the brim.

Wanderer made a chittering noise, ears going back. _=You look ridiculous,=_ he snickered.

_=I do not see how they can stand to wear these things. It is blocking my ears, and the two-legs are already half deaf.=_

_=They can probably stand it **because** they are already half deaf. Besides, their ears are lower.=_ A sound from below drew his attention. _=…The two-leg thinks you look funny, too.=_

Still ‘wearing’ the oversized hat, Trickster leaned over to look. The human was baring his teeth in the threatening-looking amusement display they used -- well, threatening-looking if you ignored the fact that their teeth were practically useless -- and holding up something small and shiny.

_=Are you going to give it back?=_

_=Of course. I was going to trade it back for some cluster stalk, but this two-leg is not carrying any today.=_

_=Does he usually?=_

Trickster chirped in amusement. _=Why do you think I took his head-thing instead of someone else’s?=_ Swinging himself back around the branch, he dangled at full stretch, holding the hat by its chin-strap; the human sighed, but held out his hands hopefully and then grinned when Quiet Trickster let go.

“Thanks, Loki. You’re not a complete shit.”

 _=Is that what the two-legs call you? What does it mean?=_ Dark Wanderer asked, stretching and yawning as the human jogged back to the nearby buildings.

The answering thought was undeniably smug. _=Light Laughter says that it is the name of a famous trickster from two-leg memory songs. Even the two-legs know what my name should be.=_

_=Ah… so you’re being **obvious** , then.=_

The resulting scuffle dropped them both out of the tree and scattered twigs everywhere.

\----------

Combing needles out of his plumed tail, Quiet Trickster looked sideways at the other treecat. _=Are you planning to stay in the area for a while?=_

 _=I am at the moment,=_ Dark Wanderer sent, distracted by grooming mud out of one ear, _=but you know as well as I do that my plans do not last. Why?=_

 _=You could come back with me to my clan’s home range; the memory singers would be interested to meet you and share the stories of your travels. It is not far, and there is a two-legs nest-place nearby with a whole garden **full** of cluster stalk,=_ Trickster told him gleefully. _=They protect the rest of their gardens with fences and metal vines that bite, but the cluster stalk just has little sticks that shine lights and make clicking noises when you walk past them. I think they do not mind if we People pick it.=_

 _=Whether they mind or not, it is going to get picked if that is all they do to guard it,=_ the darker ’cat snickered. _=That does sound good, thank you. I will not make any promises about staying for a long time, though…=_

 _=I have told the memory singers about you before,=_ Trickster said comfortably, cleaning his claws. _=They will not expect it.=_

Climbing back up the tree, they leapt from branch to branch, working their way around the edge of the human buildings until they reached a spot that was one jump away from a low roof. Claw marks and scuffed patches on the branch and roof showed that this was a frequently used route, and they hopped further until they could join a large group of treecats sunning themselves. Dark Wanderer perched on the roof-ridge, politely exchanging greetings and introductions with the local clan and their other visitors, and Trickster relaxed into a boneless sprawl in the gutter, head propped on the edge so that he could watch the humans coming and going below.

* * * * *

“Ms Maxwell, good to see you! We don’t see you out this way often,” a young woman in the Forestry Service uniform said cheerfully. Duo and Solo hung back a little, eyeing her warily, but the cream-coloured treecat on her shoulder soon had all their attention.

“Hello, Simone! My great-grandsons and I thought we’d come out and say hi to the ’cats,” Angelina told her, nodding to them both. “Good morning, Chipper.”

The treecat ‘bleek’-ed politely at her, then went back to staring at the boys.

“Well, you can start with this one right here,” the ranger grinned. “Hello there; this is my friend Chipper.” She started to crouch, to bring the ’cat down to the boys’ eye level, but blinked in surprise and straightened up again as Chipper jumped down and sat in front of them, tail wrapped neatly around her feet.

“Uh… hi, Chipper,” Duo said uncertainly. “I’m Duo. This is my cousin Solo -- well, he’s my brother now,” he corrected himself, face breaking into a grin. “We just got adopted, see.”

The ’cat chirped in an inquiring tone, head cocked to one side, and Duo’s grin widened. “You’re **really** pretty,” he told her, crouching down, and her eyes narrowed in pleasure.

“I can see that I don’t have to give you the speech about how treecats aren’t just animals, huh?” Simone said wryly, and he snickered.

“Nah, our moms were from Sphinx. They told us stories.” He blinked, smile fading, and looked away; Chipper crooned softly and stretched forward to rub her head against his hand, purring. Solo’s smile faltered for a moment before returning, not quite reaching his eyes, and he shifted sideways to press his leg against Duo’s shoulder.

“So yeah, we know about treecats,” he cut in, looking up at the ranger in a transparent attempt to draw her attention away from the younger boy. “We were born here, too, but we’re Sweepers now.”

“Sweepers?” Simone asked gently, letting him change the subject, and Angelina shot her a grateful look over the boys’ heads. Chipper was leaning up to croon at Duo, one hand-paw patting his damp cheek as he stroked her, sniffing quietly. “I haven’t heard of that, what are Sweepers?”

“It’s a salvage and transport company, mostly in Silesia ’cause there’s a lot of work there but we’ll go everywhere,” Solo said proudly. “Uncle Howard owns it, and he says it doesn’t matter where someone comes from, once you’re a Sweeper that’s it, you’ve got a home. We mostly live on the _Toolbox_ , that’s the main station, or on the ships.”

“Wow, so you’re spacers? That’s great!” Simone told him. “I’ve never been out of the Manticore System, so you’ve got me there. Is that why you’ve both got your hair like that? A Sweeper thing?”

Solo grinned, a little embarrassed, one hand going up to touch the clip holding his shoulder-length hair in a knot at the back of his head. “Yeah, kind of. If you’re wearing a spacesuit, or if you need to go in and out of zero-gee spaces, it’s best if your hair is either really short or tied up out of the way. Most people just cut it, but--”

“Our moms liked it long,” Duo spoke up, scrubbing his sleeve across his face before looking up, eyes red but face calm. “They didn’t want to cut our hair. ’Cause we’re on a planet right now we could untie it, if we wanted, but it feels kinda weird loose.”

“It would, if you’re not used to it,” the ranger said, patting her own tight bun. “Besides, planetside you’ve got to worry about wind and stuff messing it up. Or treecats,” she added dryly, eyeing Chipper, who pointedly looked away. “ **Some** treecats really like winding themselves up in their human partner’s hair, if it’s long.”

Chipper blinked and looked back at her with a patently false innocent expression. “Bleek?”

“Yes, you, you little macramé fetishist!” Simone cleared her throat, keeping her face straight with an effort, then turned back to Solo. “Okay, Ms Maxwell did say you wanted to say hi to treecat **s** , not just one, so how about we go out this way? There’s usually about twenty treecats hanging out on the roof of the transport shed.”

“Are they all partnered with rangers?” Duo asked curiously, standing up after one last pat. Chipper chirped regretfully and jumped back to Simone’s shoulder in one smooth movement; the leap looked effortless, but Simone visibly braced herself for the impact.

“Oof! Somebody’s gaining weight,” she muttered. “No, we’ve only got about half a dozen adopted pairs working here right now. The local treecat clan lives several kilometres east of Twin Forks in the picketwood, they seem to like coming into town to visit us--”

Solo snickered quietly. “Tourists.”

“--Pretty much. And there’s always a few that wander in from further away.” Simone opened a nearby door and stood back, gesturing politely for them to precede her through it. “’Cats are very social, and the younger ones often travel between territories. Sometimes they go a very long way; we’ve got records of a treecat showing up at a clan site that was half-way across the continent from his home territory…”

* * * * *

“Oh hey, he’s new,” a ranger said, tipping his hat back to get a better view of the nearly-black treecat surveying the compound from his perch on the peak of the transport shed roof. “Wow, that’s a seriously unusual colour; I’ve never seen a ’cat that was darker than sort of medium brown before.”

“Where--? Oh, him! He’s been around before, about a T-year ago I think. He seems to be friends with Loki,” a second ranger added, absent-mindedly tightening the chin strap on his hat.

“Here’s hoping he doesn’t have the same taste in jokes-- whoa, what’s up?”

Every single treecat on the roof sat up at once, ears pricking up and heads all turning to face the same way.

* * * * *

Dark Wanderer sat up with a jolt, eyes widening as an astonishingly powerful mind-glow brushed the edge of his perceptions. He’d been talking lazily with the local People, enjoying the feel of the mute but radiant two-leg minds around him, but **this** \--!

 _=Who is that?=_ Quiet Trickster asked, startled. _=Wait, there are **two** of them!=_

 _=I haven’t felt them before,=_ one of the other locals replied.

A new voice joined the conversation, coming from the direction of the bright glows. _=They are barely more than kittens,=_ she said softly. _=So sad and hurt, but so **brave** …=_

A female two-leg wearing the brown and green coverings that the local small clan seemed to favour came into view around one of the buildings, head turned as she talked to another female who was escorting a pair of smaller two-legs, hands protectively on their shoulders. Dark Wanderer leaned forwards as the smallest one looked up, deep blue eyes widening at the sight of the massed treecats staring back at him.

Their eyes met, and the brilliant mind-glow behind the blue eyes reached out for him, and Dark Wanderer jumped.

* * * * *

_“Bleek!”_

Simone’s head snapped around at the piercing call. There was a treecat racing towards her -- no, two, the dark-furred one was just easier to spot against the dusty compound grass -- and Chipper made a satisfied crooning noise on her shoulder, leaning forward. “What-- oh, hey, no, Chipper, this is a bad idea, they’re **spacer** kids!” she exclaimed, suddenly realising what was happening. “Tell your friends to back off!”

Chipper didn’t even look at her, just made a low huffing noise that she recognised as the ’cat equivalent of ‘ _you must be joking_ ’ and kept watching, approval in every line of her body.

 _Oh, this is **such** a bad idea,_ Simone told herself as she took one long step to the side to put herself in between the oncoming treecats and the kids. _If they don’t just ignore me they’re going to **shred** me, but letting them bond to a couple of Silesian kids is an even worse idea than trying to stop them!_

“What’s the matter?” Ms Maxwell said behind her, alarmed. “What-- uh, boys, maybe we should--”

The taller boy, Solo, ducked out from under her hand as she tried to tug him back, taking up a defensive stance in front of his younger cousin/brother. “Duo, back up!”

“He’s not gonna hurt me,” Duo said, voice absolutely certain. “Hey, leggo!”

 _You’re right, kid, but this is still a terrible idea!_ Simone spread her hands, crouching as she tried to block. “Chipper, tell them to **stop**!”

The paler treecat put on a sudden burst of speed, jinking to one side as he passed both the dark ’cat and Simone in one leap, then bounced back at an angle and smacked into Solo’s thin chest with a joyful chirp. The boy went over sideways with a startled ‘oof!’ as the breath was driven out of him by ten kilos of flying bone and muscle, and the darker ’cat jumped through the space where Solo had been standing a moment before to hit Duo, driving him back against his great-grandmother’s legs and purring like an unbalanced turbine.

“…Well, that was a futile effort,” Simone sighed, turning to survey the damage.

“What just happened?” Ms Maxwell asked plaintively.

“I’d say ‘congratulations’, but this is going to open up **such** a can of worms,” the ranger told her, tipping up her bush hat and scratching at her forehead as she watched the two treecats purring and snuggling against their happily oblivious partners. “Basically, ma’am, it looks like your great-grandsons got adopted **twice** today.”

“…Oh dear.”

“Yup.”

On Simone’s shoulder, Chipper purred smugly.

* * * * *

 _=You need to be paying attention to this,=_ Light Laughter sent apologetically.

_=Can it not wait?=_

_=Not really. I think it would be best to stop the two-legs right now, before they get stubborn.=_

Reluctantly, Quiet Trickster dragged a fraction of his awareness away from his two-leg -- his, **his** , the bond singing quiet joy through the back of his mind -- and towards the apparent argument going on over their heads. _=Stubborn about what?=_

 _=The two-legs’ clan elders do not think we People should bond with two-legs who do not live under this sun,=_ Light Laughter explained quickly. _=It seems that your two-leg and his littermate live a very, very long way away from this planet.=_

 _=What a shame,=_ Trickster said smugly, already starting to turn back to Solo as Dark Wanderer sent wordless agreement. _=It is too late to stop us now, so I do not care what they think.=_

_=They think that it is **not** too late to stop you.=_

_= **What?!** =_

Light Laughter opened her mind to the two newly-bonded treecats, letting them share her understanding of the humans’ conversation.

“They live on a station in Silesia,” the two-leg woman who seemed to be part of the younglings’ clan was saying. “I’m their great-grandmother, yes, but I’m **not** their legal guardian, and making them stay on Sphinx would be a terrible idea! They just lost their parents. The only reason they’re here at all was for a custody hearing, their godfather has adopted them and is going to be taking them back home. **Home** , I said!” She raised her voice, almost shouting as she overrode a male two-leg’s attempt to speak over her. “Removing them from an environment where they are happy and have friends and family to look after them would be irresponsible and frankly **cruel**!”

“Well, they’re not going to take a couple of treecats to Silesia of all places!” the male snapped back.

“I’d like to know how you plan to stop them, given that even I know that official Government policy is that a bonded treecat goes with his or her human,” she snorted, folding her arms across her chest. “Isn’t all this a bit academic now?”

“I’m not so sure,” he said grimly, turning to glare at Dark Wanderer’s human. The small two-leg was sitting on the ground with his arms wrapped firmly around the dark ’cat’s midsection, face buried in silky fur and lost to the world. “The bond takes about half an hour to complete. If we separate them **now** \--”

Light Laughter’s two-leg stiffened, drawing in a hissed breath. “You can’t do that, sir.”

“Oh, can’t I?” He laughed, an angry sound. “We have enough problems with people wanting to kidnap treecats to study them without letting a couple of kids drag a pair of ’em off to Silesia, out of our jurisdiction and away from all the safeguards we have in place to prevent them from being abused! If you say the kids aren’t staying on Sphinx, fine, I can’t make them stay on Sphinx,” he went on, glaring at the older female, “but I **can** make the **’cats** stay on Sphinx. Somebody fetch a tranq gun.”

 _= **No!** =_ Wanderer sent, near panic.

 _=No,=_ Light Laughter agreed coldly, mind-voice ringing louder until it was nearly as clear as a memory singer’s. _=We will not permit this,=_ she sent with absolute conviction, and bared her fangs in a ripping snarl.

The male two-leg stiffened, head turning to eye the female ’cat warily. “Control your partner, Ranger Anderson.”

“Sir,” Light Laughter’s two-leg said nervously, licking her lips, “I strongly suggest that you back away from those boys **right now**.”

“Anderson, I told you to control that ’cat!”

“Oh, I’ll try, sir,” she said fervently. “I might even succeed. But I can’t do a damn thing about **them** ,” she added, carefully raising one hand to point upwards.

Twenty-six treecats, crouched menacingly along the edge of the roof above them, added their own snarls to Light Laughter’s.

“Like I said, sir,” the female two-leg went on, raising her voice to be heard over the tearing-canvas noise. “You need to back away **now** , and I think you’d better cancel that order about the tranq gun too.”

 _=…I believe you can relax now,=_ Light Laughter sent slowly, watching the pale-faced two-leg sidle away. _=We will guard you.=_

Silent agreement reached out from the watching treecats, and Quiet Trickster began to relax. _=You will not let them interfere?=_

 _=No.=_ She brushed his mind with a gentle, comforting touch. _=My Simone has seen our clan defeat a Death Fang,=_ she added, darkly amused. _=She will make her elder understand.=_

 _=He had better,=_ Trickster sent, grumpily. _=Of course we will be going back to our two-legs’ home range. They are younglings, they need to stay with their clan!=_

 _=And I have always enjoyed travel,=_ Wanderer mused, curling around his small partner’s neck and purring.

* * * * *

When Mike Howard arrived fifteen minutes later, panting from his dash across town after getting Ms Maxwell’s com call, all he could do was push his sunglasses up on the top of his head and scratch his head.

“Well, shit,” he said blankly. “’Scuse me, ladies, but… well. Shit.”

“I’m so sorry, Mr Howard,” she said miserably, and he patted her hand absent-mindedly, still staring at the two boys obliviously cuddling their new partners.

“Hey, s’all right,” he shrugged. “Not your fault. I wasn’t exactly forbidding you to take them near any treecats, was I? I’m just thinking about the legal shit-fight we’re gonna have with the Forestry Service.”

“It might be easier than you think,” Simone put in, watching the boys with her arms folded and Chipper purring happily in her ear. “The ’cats are on your side.”

Howard looked sideways at her, frowning dubiously. “That’s nice and all, missy, but they can’t exactly stand up in court and give a legal argument for us, now can they?”

“I don’t know about that,” she shrugged. “’Cats have a way of getting their opinions across, even if we can’t really communicate with them. Don’t you, Chipper?”

The cream-coloured cat chirped smugly, rubbing her head against her human’s jaw and purring.

“How do you feel about Loki and his dark friend going to Silesia with the boys?”

The purr got louder.

“Sounds like you like that idea, huh?”

“Bleek!” And Chipper **nodded** , pale green eyes turning to watch Howard’s eyebrows go up.

“How do you feel about the Forestry Service trying to make the boys stay here on Sphinx?”

Chipper’s eyes narrowed and she bared her fangs, hissing softly.

“That’s clear all right, but I can see some fancy lawyer telling a judge that you’re telling your ’cat what to do,” Howard scowled.

“I’m pretty sure that any ’cat is going to react the same way, whether their human partner thinks it’s a good idea or not,” Simone assured him, and Chipper nodded again. “They’re very serious about the importance of clans, so if the boys’ clan has its territory in Silesia and the boys want to go home, the boys are going to get to go home if the ’cats have anything to say about it. Unbonded treecats might have a harder time answering questions, because most of them don’t really get the concept of spoken language, but they’ll give the same answers once someone translates for them.”

“Well… okay then,” he shrugged, a bit dubiously but willing to let himself be convinced. “It’s still gonna be a shit-fight, but I can handle that if we’ve got some weight on our side. And I’ve gotta admit,” he snorted, breaking out in a grin, “given some of the crap -- sorry -- that my Sweepers have pulled on shore leave, picking up a coupla pushy furred friends is pretty minor! Besides…”

“Besides?” Ms Maxwell asked once it became plain he wasn’t going to continue, and he sighed.

“Treecats are good for their partners, right? I mean, mentally,” he said, waving one hand vaguely next to his temple and glancing sideways at Simone. “Emotionally.”

“Very much so,” she assured him, one hand coming up to caress Chipper’s ears.

“Yeah, well in that case you could hand me a button that would fix things so this never happened, and tell me that the Forestry Service was gonna sue my ass until it was hanging in the wind without a pair of pants to cover it if I didn’t use it, and I still wouldn’t push the f-- the thing,” he growled, sliding his sunglasses back down over his eyes. “It’s been two months since the kids lost their parents, and they act like they’re doing just fine most of the time, but they’re **not** , you know? They have nightmares, and some days they hardly talk, and okay that’s kinda normal for Solo but when Duo’s quiet it’s just **wrong**. I know they’re faking being okay because they don’t want to be trouble, and I’ve tried to talk to them about it, but…” He gestured helplessly. “I even took them to a doc, y’know?”

“What did the doctor say?” Ms Mawell asked.

Howard snorted again. “The kids put on such a good show for him that he told me I was worrying too much, and transferring my own problems onto the kids because I didn’t want to admit I had any, and suggested that maybe **I** needed a little talk therapy to get over **my** issues with death,” he said, disgusted. “Then the kids had nightmares so bad they hardly slept for a week, so I wasn’t gonna try **that** twice. Anyway, if they’ve lucked into something that’s gonna help them get through all this bullshit, I can handle a Goddamn legal shit-fight,” he finished, jaw setting stubbornly.

Chipper turned to croon at him, eyes squeezing nearly shut in an expression of pleasure, and Simone laughed. “Mr Howard, sir, I think you’ve got the exact right attitude to get through this.”

“Ha. Just call me Howard, kid. We’re gonna get along just fine.”


	3. Visit exotic locales, meet interesting people, sell them pirates.

//I think we bit off more than we can chew, Bro,// Solo’s voice said dryly over the intercom.

“Nah, we can do this,” Duo said, grinning maniacally. “There’s only three of ’em!”

Shinigami bleeked derisively from the back of Duo’s chair, braced with all six sets of claws clutching the upholstery and restraining straps hooked into rings on his home-made atmosphere suit. Duo rolled his eyes and dropped his voice, speaking for the treecat’s ears only. “Yeah, I know he’s right. And he knows I know he’s right. I’m just not gonna **say** it, okay?”

The _Deathscythe_ shuddered as another missile exploded nearby, not quite all of the released energy blocked by the wedge, and the helmsman swore as he rolled the ship to take the rest of the salvo at a better angle.

“We have **got** to get those backup sidewall generators online,” Duo grumbled, slapping at his console to shut off a damage alert. “Solo, any estimate on when you can get them up? I can’t manoeuvre for shit like this!”

No answer.

“Solo, speak to me buddy, you are not allowed to freak me out like this,” he sing-songed, trying to ignore the sudden cold lump in his stomach.

“We’ve lost internal comms,” Hilde told him, hammering keys. “The engineering spaces are fine, the damage control systems are still up and we haven’t lost any people, but the main communication network is down. You can radio to yell at the pirates all you like, but nobody on board is going to hear you unless they’re in this room.”

“How the fuck did that happen?!”

“Civilian design,” she snapped, rolling her eyes. “The fiber-optics all run right under the ship’s skin to make accessing them during maintenance easier. I **told** you this wasn’t going to be a proper Q-ship until we tear it down and rebuild it from the keel up!”

“I know, I know, but we can’t afford to until we’ve got a few bounties to finance it with. Can you reroute somehow? I can’t even tell anyone to **shoot**!”

“Give me ten minutes and I can probably rejig the damage control system to send text,” she told him, and yanked the side panel off her station.

“…We don’t have ten minutes,” the helmsman said in a sick tone. “I just lost control, and we’re still rolling. The open sidewall is going to be pointed back at them in four.”

“Well. We’re kinda screwed, then,” Hilde said calmly, still shoulders-deep in the side of her console.

“We aren’t screwed until it happens,” Duo said bluntly. “I for one don’t wanna strike the wedge and surrender. Anyone disagree?”

“Hell no.” “Nope.” “Bugger that,” assorted crew members snorted.

“Good, ’cause I can’t even do that,” the helmsman sighed, sitting back with his hands dangling helplessly. “If I was in Engineering, I could control everything directly from there, but since the comms link is down I wouldn’t be able to see what I was doing.”

“We lost all the door controls, anyway,” somebody informed him cheerfully. “Nobody’s going anywhere.”

“Okay. So,” Duo started, folding his arms. “We can see everything that’s going on, and we know what needs to be done, but we can’t do shit. Solo can operate all the important systems from the engineering spaces, but he doesn’t know what needs to be done, because he can’t **see** shit. We have four minutes to fix this situation. We need ten. That about it?”

“Yup.”

“Got any more good news for me?”

“I’m gonna have to cannibalise the standalone World of Warcraft server for parts, and we haven’t backed it up for a month,” Hilde said grimly.

“Well, shit!”

\----------

“So everybody’s okay, but we’re stuck in here,” Solo said calmly, scratching Loki between the ears.

“Pretty much.” The elderly Sweeper who’d made the _Deathscythe_ ’s engines his own personal responsibility shrugged. “We can control everything -- in fact, we **are** controlling everything, because command passed over to you automatically when the links to the bridge were cut. They’re okay, we just can’t talk to them or see what the hell we’re doing. No, wait, that’s not quite correct,” he amended pedantically. “We can tell what we’re doing, as in, what angle we turn at, which way we are pointed, and so on. We just can’t see what we **need** to be doing, or what anyone else is doing.”

“Well… what’s our situation?”

“That sidewall is still down, but we’ll have the backup generators going in a minute. We’re currently doing a slow roll to port.”

“Well, let’s start by counteracting the roll,” Solo told him, sitting down again and pulling up a system display showing the last known positions of their three opponents. The red dots were slowly expanding into fuzzy red cones, showing the pirates’ possible positions based on their estimated capabilities. “We don’t want to point that sidewall at them again before it’s up…”

\----------

“We just stopped rolling,” the helmsman announced, sounding a bit more cheerful. “Engineering’s taken over the helm.”

“Awright! Solo for the win!” Duo cheered. “That gives us a few more minutes to get internal comms up, right?”

“Six,” he confirmed. “They’re heading around to cross our T.”

“Still need ten,” Hilde grunted from the depths of her console.

“You said ten three minutes ago!”

“The server wasn’t being a stubborn bitch three minutes ago.”

“Fuck!”

\----------

“If I were them, I’d be heading across to either cross our T or get an up-the-kilt shot,” Solo mused, chin in hand. “They could be doing either, and if I turn to deny them a T shot that’ll make a kilt shot easier. And vice versa.”

“There’s three of them,” the engineer pointed out. “They could be doing both.”

“Mmm.” The young man scowled, still absent-mindedly petting his treecat. “We’re royally fucked if we can’t get some sort of comms back up.”

“Howard’s going to wash your mouth out with soap when we get back to base.”

“You’re assuming we’re going to **get** back to base,” Solo pointed out, smirking.

“Not much point planning for what we’re going to do if we don’t, now is there?”

“True.” Solo scowled again, brief smile gone without a trace. “If I just knew where they were, we could still **shoot** at the bastards. Duo must be going nuts up there,” he added, sighing.

Settled comfortably in his lap, Loki looked up with narrowed eyes. “Bleek?”

“Yeah, furball, I know. It sucks.”

The pale green eyes narrowed further, and then Loki reached out one true-hand and stabbed one clawtip into the back of Solo’s hand.

“Yeouch! What the hell--?!”

“ **Bleek**!”

Green eyes stared into blue, and Solo froze, barely breathing for a few long seconds as he looked at his partner. Then:

“…Right. Right! **Jake**!”

“Right here, no need to yell,” the engineer grumbled, eyeing him warily.

“Switch missile control over to my station, but leave attitude control here as well. I’ll have a firing solution in a minute.”

“Ain’t gonna fit on your screen with everything you’ve already got on there,” the older man shrugged, moving to do what he’d been asked anyway.

“Take off the system display. I won’t need it.”

“…If you say so.”

\----------

Up in the cramped little bridge, Duo was tapping both feet and drumming one set of fingers on his armrest in frustration.

“That is damn annoying.”

“Can’t help it.”

“I’m gonna come over there as soon as I’m done and hit you, you know,” Hilde grunted, voice strained as she stretched to reach one particular connection.

“Get me some sort of communication with Solo and you can tapdance on my nuts,” Duo muttered, not quite quietly enough.

“I’ll hold you to that!”

“One sentence,” Duo said to nobody in particular. “I just need to get one sentence to him. Hell, not even a whole sentence, I could leave out the verb and I wouldn’t need adjectives or any of that shit, conjunctions or whatever--”

“Somebody hit him for me?” Hilde pleaded.

“I’d arrest you for mutiny if I didn’t need you to pull all our asses out of the-- **hey**!”

Shinigami had thwacked him across the side of the head with his tail. Since that three-foot-long prehensile appendage was encased in a modified atmosphere suit sleeve, complete with armoured joint in the middle, it was a rather more solid blow than it would normally have been.

“Damnit, Shini, you’re supposed to be on my side!”

“Go ’cat!” Hilde cheered in a muffled voice, kicking one foot in lieu of waving a fist.

“Nyowwwwwr!” Shinigami yowled, an angry noise that usually meant _“I found an air leak”_ or _“Send backup, the vermin in the air shaft are bigger than me”_ , not _“I’m playing.”_ Frowning, Duo twisted in his seat to stare at his friend, rubbing the side of his head.

“Dude, seriously, now is not the t--”

Yellow eyes stared into blue. The helmsman looked around as Duo cut off in mid-word, and saw his young co-captain staring open-mouthed at the treecat, barely breathing.

“…Boss?”

“Did Shini strangle him?” Hilde asked, still muffled ribs-deep inside her console. “Because he’s not **that** bad, really, he might be useful to keep around--”

“--Right,” Duo said abruptly, starting to grin as he spun back to face his console. “Right! Angus, get me a firing solution. Hilde, get back in your chair, we’re gonna be manoeuvring in a sec. Cheng-yi, plot me a spin-and-skew that lets us get both our broadsides off at those jerks, thank God the idiots are in one clump, without exposing our throat or our kilt.”

“Our port sidewall’s still down--” the helmsman started.

“Not for long,” Duo assured him, grinning broadly.

“--and we oh hey there’s our sidewall,” he finished weakly. “Um. We’ve only got eighty-something percent strength but that’s a lot better than… okay. Plotting.”

“I’ve been running missile plots on them the whole time,” Angus said flatly, hitting one key. “On your console.”

“Thaaaaank you!” Duo chirped merrily, almost bouncing in his seat.

“Uh, not to burst your bubble, Duo, but we still can’t do jack without comms,” Hilde pointed out. Despite her apparent scepticism, she still climbed back into her station chair and strapped in, wiping dust off her cheek and sneezing.

“Not a problem,” he assured her breezily, eyes bright. Behind him, Shinigami huffed and rolled his eyes, then curled around the back of Duo’s neck as far as his safety straps would allow, pointed chin pressed against his partner’s temple.

“Where d’you want your manoeuvring data?” Cheng-yi asked, fingers tapping staccato on his console.

“Stick it on the main screen,” the younger man said, almost absent-mindedly, as he studied Angus’s targeting data. “Hmmm… yeah, that’s a good spread… Angus, keep plotting so we can fire again if the first salvo doesn’t get ’em.”

“Whaddaya think I’m doing already?”

“Solution’s on screen,” the helmsman said, hitting one last key. Everyone looked at Duo.

\----------

Down in the engineering spaces, Solo entered the last few digits of the missile targeting data with his right hand as his left started to type in a course and attitude change. Finished, he hovered one finger over the ‘Execute’ key and looked upwards, towards the bridge.

\----------

Duo’s hands were on his armrests, nowhere near the console controls, as he leaned forward and watched a counter tick down towards zero on the screen. On a side display, the icons representing three pirate ships slid towards the tags indicating missile targeting spots.

The counter hit zero.

\----------

Solo slammed his hand down on his console, and the _Deathscythe_ twisted to port and ‘down’, yanking the wide-open throat of its gravity wedge away from the oncoming pirate ships and starting to spin. Ten missiles spat out of its starboard broadside and streaked towards its opponents, followed by another eight from the port broadside as the ship continued its spin. The ninth missile was ejected from the missile tube but misfired, tumbling away until the continued spin brought the edge of the grav wedge around and shattered it.

The door to the tenth missile tube jammed, bent out of true by the earlier damage, and the _Deathscythe_ ’s side erupted in flame and molten metal as the nuclear-tipped missile hit the closed door and detonated its entire propellant load in one blast.

* * * * *

“Herr Kapitän! Hyper emergence, three ships.” The reporting crewman rattled off position information, giving a location reasonably close to her own ship but further out-system and slightly above the plane of the ecliptic, then paused. “Ah… ship classes are indeterminate,” she said eventually, frowning at her screen. “One ship appears to approximate a light cruiser in mass. I am designating this ship as Unknown 1. The other two are… much bigger… but seem to have civilian-grade nodes, judging by the spectrum.”

The captain raised one finely-etched black eyebrow, looking away from his low-voiced conversation with his XO. “I take it the smaller ship has military-grade nodes, then?”

“Yes, Herr Kapitän, otherwise I would have characterised her as an _Astra_ -class freighter. Unknowns 2 and 3 have reconfigured for impeller drive… one moment. Judging by the strength of their grav wedges and observed acceleration, both are close to a megaton in mass. Unknown 1 is confirmed as slightly heavier than a standard light cruiser. She has a flutter in her wedge consistent with a damaged alpha node. All three ships are on course for the inner system, in close formation.”

“Helmsman, change course to intercept. Open channel.”

“Ready, Herr Kapitän.”

“Unknown vessels, this is the IANS heavy cruiser _Shenlong_ , Kapitän der Sterne Chang commanding. You have entered the Sachsen system and are in territory claimed by the Andermani Empire,” the captain said crisply. “Identify yourselves.” He gestured to his communications officer to close the channel. “Estimated delay?”

“Slightly over eight minutes at this point, Herr Kapitän. We now have transponder IDs for all three ships; Silesian registries. Redesignating Unknown 1 as _Todsense_ , Unknown 2 as _Bucket_ and Unknown 3 as _Mop_.”

The captain looked blank. “ _Todsense_ , _Bucket_ , and… _Mop_ ,” he repeated slowly.

“Yes, Herr Kapitän,” the communications officer replied, straight-faced.

“I cannot **wait** to talk to these people.”

\----------

Nine minutes later, an audio-only reply arrived, slightly distorted by static.

//Yeah, hi there _Shenlong_!// a young voice said cheerfully. //Glad to see you; we’re heading in to make a delivery to your base in the system. Got some pirates for you, hope you’ve got the cash on hand for the bounties.//

At this point the transmission was interrupted by a yowling sound, presumably some form of interference.

//Oh, yeah. My bad. This is Duo Ramirez y Maxwell, co-captain of the Sweeper Q-ship _Deathscythe_ , yes I know that’s not what our transponder says today but duh, Q-ship. We have letters of marque signed by half a dozen star nations including you guys, and an electronic copy should be arriving in your systems right about now. The other two ships with us are pure civilian, the Sweeper salvage and repair ships _Mop_ and _Bucket_ , and they’re hauling the two pirate ships we managed to capture. Third one got blown outta space when its fusion bottle let go, which is a shame, not that I care about the crew but we got repair bills and the extra cash woulda been nice. Also, I am totally putting a new fibre-optic network at the top of our list of necessary mods. Lemme see, what else… oh yeah! We don’t know the pirate ships’ names, we’ve just temporarily nicknamed them _Turd_ and _Prick_ , and I’d appreciate it a whole bunch if you’d help us get the pirates out of ’em. You’ve got Marines and shit, and we’re giving the crew to you anyway, but we claim the hulls under both conquest and salvage rights, ’kay?//

//Duo, you idiot, gimme that,// a female voice interrupted. There was dead air for a few seconds, and then she returned.

//I apologise for my captain’s manners,// she said dryly. //We took casualties in the fight, and this is how he copes with stress. He seems to have given you all the pertinent information, so if you’ll be kind enough to overlook the presentation it looks like we’ll be able to talk in realtime in about twenty minutes. Thank you for your time.//

“Message ends there, Herr Kapitän.”

The Andermani captain was sitting with his chin supported on one hand, fingers over his mouth, and paused for a moment before responding. “…I see,” he said eventually, voice slightly strained. “Do we have any more information on their ships? What are these ‘Sweepers’? And are their letters of marque in order?”

“Yes, Herr Kapitän, everything seems to be in order. They have the correct codes and… are signed by His Imperial Majesty himself,” the communications officer said, a little startled. “Querying the codes in our database brings up a notation that the _Deathscythe_ is known to operate under several aliases, of which _Todsense_ is one. The Sweepers are apparently a transport, salvage, and repair company incorporated in Silesia, operating out of the private stations _Toolbox_ , _Wheelbarrow_ , and _Dumptruck_. In practice they operate much like a small independent nation.”

“I’m beginning to see a certain pattern in their ship names,” the captain observed.

“Indeed, Herr Kapitän. The _Mop_ and _Bucket_ are also listed in our database; their specifications are… impressive.” A few quick keystrokes put a diagram on screen.

“Mein Gott,” somebody muttered under their breath.

Both the captain’s eyebrows shot up, and he leaned forward, scanning the specifications. “That is… a brilliant idea,” he breathed, eyes lighting up. “Why has no-one thought of it before? Why have **we** not thought of it before? Imagine this design used as a fleet repair vessel! We could retrieve warships that now have to be scuttled because they have lost Warshawski capability and cannot reach a system with appropriate facilities under their own power!”

Most of the mass of the ship on-screen was concentrated in the nose and tail, forming the familiar ‘hammerhead’ shapes seen on most warp-capable ships. The main body, however, was only a flattened spine; four long, curving struts studded with numerous tractor and pressor mounts enclosed empty space where the rest of the ship’s hull would normally be.

“How large a ship can they carry, though?” the helmsman objected. “If they can only carry lighter units--”

“I believe you may be misjudging their size,” the communications officer interrupted. “If you will bear with me for a moment… there.” Another ship appeared in the display, seeming like a toy next to the bold lines of the Sweeper design.

“That,” the communications officer continued dryly, “is the _Shenlong_. To scale.” A few more clicks, and she moved the tiny ship into the centre of the other ship’s struts, wordlessly demonstrating how tractor and pressor beams could be used to hold it in place for transport. “We could fit inside one of those ships nearly three times over.”

“And they seem to be maintaining quite a respectable acceleration,” the captain pointed out. “Even with civilian drive nodes.”

\----------

As they rendezvoused in space with the Sweeper ships, still moving towards the inner system and its one inhabited planet, members of the _Shenlong_ ’s crew started finding reasons to visit the few sections that had a large-screen display. All of those displays were now showing a live video feed from the pinnace that had gone out to inspect the newcomers close-up, and the _Mop_ and _Bucket_ were even more impressive than their specs. The battered pirate ships held in their open cargo spaces were dwarfed by the two immense salvage ships, lit up by powerful searchlights that revealed every burn mark and ruptured plate. Several of the pirates’ missile tubes and drive nodes were marked with suspiciously precise melted areas -- they were clearly out of commission, but no missile or ship-mounted laser in existence was that accurate. _Shenlong_ ’s captain made a mental note to ask about those marks, and turned his attention back to the third vessel.

The _Deathscythe_ was limping along at a pace that most merchant spacers would have sniffed at, far below a military ship’s normal acceleration. She bore the scars of her victorious battle, in some ways worse off than the losers; several of her drive nodes had long soot-marks stretching out from their mounts. There was a great melted rent in her port side, armour plates missing or twisted outwards, and no sidewall covering that half of her broadside armament. The hole in the ship’s side was centred on one of her missile tubes -- more precisely, where one of her missile tubes had been -- and was wide enough to engulf the tubes on either side. _Shenlong_ ’s captain winced as he saw how deep the damage went.

“ _Shenlong_ to _Deathscythe_ ,” the communications officer sent, not taking her eyes off the main screen. “Kapitän Chang wishes me to extend his compliments; he would be honoured if your co-captains would come aboard for whatever meal is next in your ship’s daycycle, and would also like to know if you require any assistance.”

// _Deathscythe_ here,// the same clear female voice as before responded. //Please pass our compliments to your captain, and let him know that our co-captains would be happy to attend; we’re coming up to our lunch hour. As for the offer of assistance…// She paused for a moment, then resumed with a firmer tone. //No thank you. We’re fine.//

“Acknowledged, Deathscythe. Would it be convenient if our pinnace picked up your co-captains in, say, ninety minutes?”

//Yes, that would-- hold that thought, _Shenlong_.// The transmission cut off.

“Now what?” someone muttered. The communications officer frowned and opened the channel again.

“ _Deathscythe_ , are you--”

// _Shenlong_ , call your pinnace back! Our fusion bottle is losing integrity and it looks like we’re going to have to dump it!//

_Deathscythe_ ’s impeller wedge flickered and died, leaving it coasting as the communications officer slapped another control, changing channels. “Clear the area! _Longying_ , clear the area! Imminent fusion explosion!” On screen, the camera view of the three ships spun wildly for a moment, then steadied, rapidly shrinking as the pinnace raced away at emergency power; the giant repair ships stayed in formation with their crippled companion, but rolled to interpose their wedges between themselves and the threatened explosion.

\----------

“That’s not good,” Solo muttered, running through diagnostic menus as the screen flashed red warnings at him. “That’s really not good.”

“Understatement,” Jake grunted, not taking his eyes off his own screen. “Think you can pull it back before the safeties dump it automatically?”

“Maybe, if I can just find out what’s **wrong**!”

Internal communications were still down, but Hilde had come through with her promised tweak of the damage control systems once the battle was over and they were waiting for the _Mop_ and _Bucket_ to hyper in from their out-system staging point. Still concentrating on the diagnostics, Solo was peripherally aware of messages scrolling across the top of his screen, half-buried in the warning popups.

[SOLO FFS I AM SITTING HERE LIKE A WART ON A LOG UNABLE TO DO SHIT, THIS SUCKS]

“It’s either a software problem or turbulence in the plasma causing hot spots,” Solo said, closing one set of diagnostic options and opening another. “If it’s turbulence, there’s no way we’re going to get it back in time. If it’s software, we **might** be able to get it back in time, but with all the network failures there’s no guarantee the faulty module is still linked in.”

[I SWEAR IF I HAVE TO DRILL HOLES IN THE DECKPLATES BY HAND TO RUN STRING AND TIE TIN CANS ON THE ENDS WE ARE GOING TO HAVE COMMS REDUNDANCY]

“Which means there’s no guarantees the **safeties** are still linked in,” Jake pointed out calmly.

Solo and Jake glanced up, met each other’s eyes, and nodded in unison. “Dump it.”

On larger ships with more formality (and more redundancy), a manual bottle dump was almost unheard of. If such a ship even **had** a manual release, it was likely to be locked down and require multiple keys and passwords to access, rendering it moot in all but the most unlikely circumstances.

_Deathscythe_ ’s manual release was a large red button underneath a latched -- but not locked -- safety shield. Without ceremony, Solo flicked the shield up and punched the recessed button hard enough to crack its plastic.

\----------

Up on the bridge, the first sign of what had happened was a shock through the ship’s frame as explosive bolts detonated, kicking a large segment of the hull away from the ship. A moment later there was another shock and the main lights blinked out as the massive fusion bottle followed. Dim red emergency lights came up slowly, revealing the bridge crew frozen in place as they waited to see what happened next.

Duo’s hands were poised over his keyboard, halfway through typing his next sentence. As the seconds stretched out and nothing changed, he blew out his held breath in a loud sigh and grinned.

“Man, that was--”

All the lights went out again as the internal gravity fluctuated, going from 1G to zero to what felt like about five, and the entire hull rang like a bell as the fusion bottle finally lost containment and detonated.

\----------

Solo picked himself slowly up off the floor as the lights came up again, rubbing his forehead. “Ow. Note to self: sit down before dumping the bottle,” he muttered, wincing as his fingers found a small cut. “Everybody okay?”

“Better off than you, looks like,” Jake snorted, levering himself up. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig. Siddown.”

“Is the backup online?”

“Why d’ya think we have lights again? It’s not because I’m scuffing my feet to make static sparks.”

Solo grinned, mopping ineffectually at the blood running down his face. “Okay. Rephrased question: is the backup **stable**?”

“The system’s already running diagnostics,” Jake told him, checking his screen. “Guess the safeties are still linked in after all.”

“Oh yay, some good news,” Solo sighed, finally sitting down. Loki slinked out from underneath the chair and hopped onto the armrest, chirping in worried tones. “I’m okay, Fuzzball, nothing serious.”

“Hold still.” Jake pulled a first-aid kit and some clean rags out of a storage compartment and advanced with a determined expression. “Loki, get out of his face, will ya? He is okay, but he’s gonna bleed all over the deckplates if I don’t get some sealant on that cut.”

Solo’s console beeped as the damage control system started bringing up reports from other areas of the ship, and he glanced over, one eye squinted shut as Jake mopped roughly at the blood on his forehead.

“Hold still or I’ll glue your braid to your nose!”

“You get that shit in my hair and I will wreak awesome but unspecified revenge-- huh?”

“What?”

“Look, just stick a patch on it and check the diagnostics from the backup bottle, okay? Duo wants something.”

\----------

[SO.] The brief message blinked on the screen for a few more seconds before Solo responded, similarly brief.

[SO?]

At least Duo’s next text was an actual sentence, Solo noted. [ARE WE DEAD YET?]

[NOPE.]

[ARE WE GONNA BE?]

[PROBABLY NOPE.]

[WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, ‘PROBABLY’?!]

[I DON’T THINK ANYTHING ELSE IS GONNA GO FOOM, BUT I DIDN’T THINK THE FUSION BOTTLE WAS GOING TO EITHER. NO, I DO NOT HAVE ANY INDICATIONS THAT ANYTHING IS GOING TO GO FOOM *RIGHT NOW*.]

[GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME! MAN THAT WAS ONE HELL OF A RIDE! DID YOU SEE THE FLASH?]

[-_-]

[OH. RIGHT.]

[MORON :P]

[HA HA. LOOK, THE PICKET CAPTAIN INVITED US TO LUNCH AND WE SHOULD HAVE ALL THE DOORS WORKING IN HALF AN HOUR. WANNA GO?]

[SURE. SOMEBODY HAS TO COUNTERACT THE IMPRESSION YOU’LL MAKE.]

[TOO LATE!]

\----------

Solo sat back, eyeing the screen, and scratched absent-mindedly at a drying spot of blood on his cheek. “Duo’s wired.”

“Ain’t he always?”

“I mean, wired by his standards. He’s gonna crash bad later.” Frowning, he started skimming the older damage report summaries.

“Huh. He doesn’t usually get frazzled after we get a pirate-- well, not that I can tell.” Jake shrugged.

“No, he doesn’t, but-- oh.” Some of the light went out of Solo’s eyes as he read. “We don’t normally take this much damage. We lost three missile crews and decompressed half the ship’s waist when portside number six tube went up.”

“Damn.” Jake was silent for a moment. “Guess we were too busy to notice.”

“No kidding. He wasn’t, though, and he’s going to be kicking himself with second thoughts for a month.”

* * * * *

Chang waited patiently as the _Longying_ finally returned to _Shenlong_ ’s boat bay, hands behind his back. Beside him, his executive officer cleared his throat.

“Kapitän?”

“Yes, Hahn?”

The short, barrel-shaped man looked up at his (only slightly) taller captain. “With the amount of damage their ship has sustained, I am amazed they are still coming for lunch.”

One corner of the captain’s mouth twitched up in a faint smile. “Well, they apparently feel that the damage is not severe enough to require assistance, so…”

Hahn nearly choked. “Not severe enough--?!”

“You were off the bridge when they lost their main fusion bottle. I repeated my offer of assistance, and the response was -- ah -- I believe the exact words were, ‘No worries, we’ve got a spare’.” Black eyes sparkled with grave humour as the captain looked sideways at his XO. “They didn’t even revise their ETA; the _Mop_ and _Bucket_ rolled back into formation and towed the _Deathscythe_ between them with tractors until they got their wedge back up and were able to match acceleration.”

“They-- **between** them?!” Hahn sputtered for a moment, going pale. “Both? At once? With tractor beams? And the ship is still in one **piece**?!”

“Oh, yes. They were very casual about it, too. Apparently it is standard procedure in their company.”

The glint in Chang’s eye was a little steelier now, but still amused. Despite its high standards and justified pride in its officers’ skills and precision, the Imperial Andermani Navy had some very stern regulations forbidding its ship captains from trying the exact manoeuvre that a couple of civilian ships had just performed perfectly… because if it **wasn’t** performed perfectly, with both towing ships holding perfect formation and matching tractor beam strengths to within a few fractions of a percent, the ship being towed had a nasty tendency to rip in half.

“…I would very much like to meet the helmsmen who did that,” Hahn breathed eventually, still wide-eyed.

“You may get the chance. And we are still not trying it.”

“Of course not, Herr Kapitän!”

There was a slight pause. Chang seemed to be waiting for something.

“…Not even with a drone?” Hahn eventually asked in a wistful voice. “Or a cargo container? Perhaps an asteroid?”

“No, Hahn.”

“ _*sigh*_ Understood, Herr Kapitän.”

A whistle shrilled as the personnel tube from the _Longying_ opened, and the side party snapped to attention. Three slender figures in neat ‘formal’ shipknits swam down the tube, reaching the grab bar at the end and flipping neatly through the transition to _Shenlong_ ’s artificial gravity.

The lead figure looked around, long chestnut braid swinging, and focussed on Chang. “You must be the captain,” he said cheerfully, bouncing forward and sticking out his hand. “Is that right? I don’t know German, sorry, so if your rank means something else, I apologise, but it sounds awfully close.”

Chang shook his hand and bowed slightly, heels clicking together. “Yes, ‘Captain’ is appropriate,” he said politely. “Wufei Chang. My XO, Konrad Hahn.”

“Duo Ramirez y Maxwell. This is my brother and co-captain, Solo Ramirez y Maxwell; our third in command, communications officer and all-round awesome person, Hilde Schbeiker; and these two furballs are Shinigami and Loki.”

A dark bulk on his shoulder revealed itself as a treecat, not the bag it had seemed to be, as a pair of bright yellow eyes opened and the ’cat sat up straight, midlimbs and true feet keeping it steady; it blinked at Chang, made a quiet chittering noise, and offered one true-hand. Gravely, Chang shook hands again, then repeated the process with the blond co-captain, paler treecat, and dark-haired young woman.

“Man, **somebody’s** on his best behaviour,” Duo commented, twisting his head sideways to eye his companion. “He normally wallops me when I call him that.”

Shinigami huffed and looked away, nose in the air, and the communications officer rolled her eyes. “He’s saving it up for after we leave,” she said dryly, and the paler ’cat -- Loki -- made a sound that was very obviously a snicker.

“Is there a reason why your treecats are named after deities?” Chang asked, leading the way towards the door.

“Loki already had his name when we met,” Solo explained, “and it fits; he likes practical jokes. Shinigami got his name because we have a few Japanese-speaking crew members, and he’s death on vermin.”

“That sounds useful,” Hahn said fervently. “Some rats got on board in a shipment of electronics once, and it took weeks-- um.”

“Dude, I’m not going to think you’re slack for having rats on board,” Duo said bluntly, grinning. “If I did, I’d have to think **we** were slack for having snakes in the ventilation system a while back.”

“ **Snakes**?!”

“Well, not snakes exactly, but they looked like a cross between snakes and caterpillars, you know, little stubby legs all down the body. We caught a few small ones and thought we’d fixed the problem, and then Shini started going nuts every time he went near one particular section of the station. Turns out there was this nest--”

\----------

Gesturing broadly to illustrate his points, Duo walked into the formal dining room beside a fascinated Hahn.

“--so the next thing we knew, Shini’s yelling for backup because the adult snake-things are about five times his mass. Loki went in after him, there’s a hell of a racket with two ’cats yowling and snarling and the snake-things make this weird hooting noise when they’re injured, the emergency switchboard starts lighting up with people calling in panicking because they’ve got horrible noises and **blood** coming out the air vents, and when it was all over it took about a week for us to clean all the ducts out and fix everything. And you know what the best part was?”

“No,” Hahn said obligingly. “What was the best part?”

“There we are, wondering how the hell we had giant snake-things with legs breeding in the ventilation ducts without anyone noticing something was wrong, and this guy speaks up and says Oh, he’s been resetting his airflow sensor for weeks and finally pulled out some wires to shut it up because it kept beeping, and there was a funny smell, was he supposed to report it?”

Hahn’s jaw dropped. “What was someone like that doing living on a **station**?”

“I know! The idiot was propping his airseal door open to get fresh air! He grew up dirtside and was used to smells being nothing to worry about, but it’s not like he never got a safety lecture,” Duo snorted.

“Ms. Schbeiker?” Chang murmured, pulling out her chair and bowing politely as she sat down.

“Thank you, Captain,” she said demurely, folding her hands in her lap and watching her own captains with a faint smile.

“Ah! My apologies,” Hahn said, belatedly noticing that they had arrived. “Sir, if you would sit here?”

“Dude, don’t call me ‘sir’, it’s weird. ‘Duo’ is fine.”

“And you might as well call me ‘Solo’,” the blond said in resigned tones, sitting down. His treecat hopped off his shoulder as an orderly pulled out the next chair for him and chirped a thank-you. “With us having the same surname it’s just easier to use first names.”

“And like I said, it’s weird,” Duo grinned, dropping into his own seat. “We’re not military or anything.”

“Despite serving on an acknowledged and licensed Q-ship?” Chang asked, raising one eyebrow as he took his own place at the head of the table. “Even purely civilian ships still require a command structure, and Q-ships surely qualify as at least quasi-military.”

The two co-captains glanced at each other and shrugged in unison. “We’re a bit of an unusual case,” Duo started. “Um…”

“Many of the smaller Sweepers ships are run by a family, or a small group of friends,” Solo said, picking up the thread of the conversation. “Others, yes, there’s a single captain and a proper hierarchy of officers, people say ‘sir’ and maybe even salute. Us, though…” He shrugged again, looking a little uncomfortable. “We’re not in this for the money, though we’re doing our best to operate at a profit. Running expenses, repairs, upgrades and so on, we need to make money to take care of those, sure. We may be operating with a Sweepers registry, but financially we’re a separate concern.”

“I can see that there might be legal problems if you weren’t,” Chang agreed.

“Oh, hell yeah,” Duo muttered, starting to reach for his wineglass and pulling his hand back as he realised nobody else was.

“Duo and I financed the _Deathscythe_ ’s purchase and conversion with income from our personal shares,” Solo went on. “We’re legally separate from but affiliated with the main company, and we paid a **lot** of money to a bunch of lawyers to make sure that would stick. We’re even paying to hire the _Mop_ and _Bucket_. Sorry, that was a bit of a digression, but it’s related to why we have the command structure we do.”

“You mean, why we **don’t** have a command structure,” Hilde smirked, unfolding her napkin.

“Why we have an **informal** command structure,” Solo amended. “Everybody knows who gives the orders, and we don’t have problems with insubordination or disobedience, because everyone who serves on board the _Deathscythe_ is there for one reason. We hate pirates.”

He’d spoken calmly, but there was a depth of feeling in the words, and silence fell for a moment as stewards moved around the table. Duo continued the explanation, eyes dark.

“Our parents were killed by pirates when we were kids. It was one of the little ships Solo mentioned, run by a bunch of friends. We were the only survivors. And when we started up a couple of years ago, we got volunteers from all across the Sweepers. Everyone’s lost someone.”

“My sister,” Hilde confirmed, gaze steady.

“We bullshit a lot, and I know we sound like a bunch of jackasses--”

“Speak for yourself,” she muttered, and Duo stuck his tongue out at her before going on.

“--but we’re serious,” he finished. “Sure, we’re gonna have fun while we do this, but we’re deadly serious.”

Somehow, even with the faint smile still on his face, even after the childish-sounding banter and flippant style of his first communication with the _Shenlong_ , Wufei Chang believed him.

“I see,” he said, steepling his hands in front of him. “You would need to be, to take the risks that you run in every combat. You took damage, in this latest fight…” He trailed off, not finishing the sentence, and Duo nodded. He was still smiling, but his eyes showed the pain.

“And casualties,” he confirmed. “Twenty-one dead and another five injured. Eighteen dead from our missile crews, three more who couldn’t seal their suits in time when we lost atmosphere in the underlying sections.”

Chang blinked, surprised, and knew it was showing on his face. “That’s an astonishingly light casualty list for the amount of damage you took.”

“Not to us. That’s a sixth of our crew.”

“One sixth?” Hahn asked incredulously. “You run the equivalent of a light cruiser with only a hundred and twenty personnel?!”

Duo shrugged. “We don’t run three full watches, we don’t have a cruiser’s full set of weaponry -- fewer missiles in our broadside, no grasers or lasers at all -- and we use a heck of a lot of automation and computer control. It’s not always the best option when you’re being shot at, but we’re redesigning as we go. So yeah, we have a small crew, and we know every single person on board, so we don’t need uniforms and titles and saluting to keep everyone in line.”

_And you know every single person you lost today,_ Chang thought, watching him. _By name, and face, and I would wager you also know their next of kin and who their death will affect…_ “Well,” he said, glancing around the table to check that everyone in attendance had a full wineglass in front of them, “your methods are demonstrably successful. I would like to propose a toast.” He raised his glass and paused, waiting until they had picked theirs up. “To the honoured dead!”

“To the honoured dead!” they chorused, and drank.

\----------

Halfway through the first course, Chang thought of something. “I wonder if you could explain something to me,” he said, turning to speak to Solo.

“Yes?”

“Your brother said your ship has no lasers in its armament, but some of the visible damage to your opponents appears to be the result of laser fire. Very precise, fairly small-calibre laser fire.”

“Ah!” Solo grinned. “That wasn’t us, that was the _Mop_ and _Bucket_ ’s work.”

“They’re armed?”

“Not exactly.” Solo took a sip of wine to clear his mouth and elaborated, gesturing with his fork. “They carry enough spares to equip a repair station and can install them all, so they’ve got a full complement of EVA worksuits. Big, armoured, high-powered worksuits, with laser cutters strong enough to cut and weld full-thickness warship armour plate. And if you detune the cutters slightly, so that they’re firing a wider beam than usual, what you have is a weapons-grade laser. About the same strength as the ones usually mounted on pinnaces, if I remember right,” he mused, taking another mouthful.

“I’m beginning to see where this is going,” Chang said dryly.

“I’m sure you do,” Solo grinned back after he swallowed. “Okay, we had these two pirate ships, and we’d shot them up enough so they couldn’t run, had to surrender. They still had a bunch of functioning weapons, though, and they might not be able to bring up a full-strength wedge, but they had enough nodes left to suicide and take the _Mop_ or _Bucket_ with them if they were crazy enough to start up their drives after they’d been taken in-board. So they sent out a couple of workgroups in suits to burn out everything the pirates had left that might cause trouble, first.”

“They could still destabilise their own fusion bottles, if they are truly determined,” Chang pointed out.

“Oh, sure they could, but do you know how **hard** that is to do on purpose? You hafta basically lobotomise your own computer systems to shut the safeties down, and you’ve got maybe a fifty-fifty chance of managing it without losing your own control systems at the same time. Besides, it takes too long. It’s one thing to hit three controls and bring your wedge up inside another ship’s,” he pointed out. “That’s fast. Not much time for second thoughts. Sitting there for five or ten or fifteen minutes actively working to blow yourself up, though, that takes real dedication -- and believe me, the repair ship crews are watching their sensors **very** carefully,” he added. “They’ll see something like that happening way in advance, and all they’ve got to do is dump the pirates before they can crash their bottle.”

“At which point it kinda sucks to be them,” Duo agreed. “By the way, all that fuss with **our** fusion bottle nearly made me forget. Do you mind sending in some Marines or something to dig the pirate pricks outta their shells? A few of them abandoned ship during the fight, the _Mop_ picked those ones up and has them in a locked cargo compartment, but we don’t really have the facilities to make the others play nice. The only armour we’ve got is the heavy EVA worksuits Solo was telling you about, and they won’t fit in the corridors, so our only practical options are to ask for a favour or blow them up ships and all.”

“Which would not be good for your operating budget?” Chang asked sympathetically, and hid a smile as Shinigami chirped out something emphatic-sounding.

“Yeah,” Duo said, rolling his eyes. “The furry accountant gets ticked if we don’t maximise our potential bounty, and frankly if we don’t realise enough profit from this to get a multiply-redundant comms system built into the _’Scythe_ **I’ll** get ticked.”

“I don’t see a problem,” Chang assured them. “You were planning to deliver them to our in-system base, I believe?” At Duo’s nod, he sat back in his chair and spread his hands, smiling. “Well, as an official representative of His Imperial Majesty’s government, I am empowered to take delivery of your prisoners and approve all relevant bounties. Since you’ve been kind enough to bring them to me in a way that will give my on-board Army battalion some exercise -- they’ve been rather bored lately, I understand -- we will be happy to take them off your hands and leave the ships with you. I do want copies of any information that can be stripped out of their computers, of course, and if you have records of the battle I can also authorise a bounty payment for the ship you destroyed.” His smile widened. “His Imperial Majesty does not wish anyone to be financially disadvantaged merely because they stopped a pirate ship **permanently**.”

Four heads turned towards him in unison, showing four answering feral smiles, nearly identical except for the length and pointiness of the bared teeth. “That sounds just fine, Captain,” Duo assured him. Beside him, Shinigami purred.

* * * * *

_To Großadmiral Chien-lu Anderman, Herzog von Rabenstrange:_

_I have attached my personal observations and report regarding the non-aligned civilian Q-ship_ Deathscythe _, and strongly recommend flagging their entry in the standard database download for our naval ships ‘render assistance and cooperation as necessary’. While at first glance they may appear undisciplined, their accomplishments speak for themselves. (See attached file ‘Bounties’.) I believe them to be honourable allies and intend to watch their future career with interest._

_Please also note the technical files relating to the Sweepers repair and transport ships_ Mop _and_ Bucket _. Do not let the rather prosaic names detract from the amazing technological developments evident in the design of these ships! A small private company operating in Silesia has come up with something that may trigger wide-ranging changes in specialist ship design and even military tactics. I am sure you will be able to see the potential even more clearly than I. The separate file detailing what data my staff were able to obtain regarding their ‘heavy worksuits’ is also of particular interest, I think._

_I could go on in this vein for some time, but I prefer to let the data speak for itself._

_With affectionate respect, your cousin,  
Kapitän der Sterne Wufei Anderman Chang, Freiherr von Bayreuth._

* * * * *

_To Kapitän der Sterne Meiran Reinke Chang, Freifrau von Bayreuth:_

_My beloved wife,_

_If we are ever in the same system as the ship I met today, I must introduce you to her captains and their treecats. (The treecats would most certainly be offended if they were left out!) They appear rude, juvenile, and undisciplined, but in reality I believe them to be some of the most honourable and brave people I have ever met, truly worthy of respect. You will either love or hate them, and I look forward to finding out which…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes and Translations:
> 
> \- The first Andermani Emperor thought he was the reincarnation of Frederick the Great, and designed the imperial structure around his delusions. The population of the first planet in his Imperial domain were ethnic Chinese, and embraced all his ideas with enthusiasm since he'd saved them from a famine, including renaming their own planet from Kuan Yin to Potsdam. So yes, Wufei Chang looks Chinese and speaks Chinese... but speaks German as his other native language, and serves in a very Prussian star navy.
> 
> \- A Q-ship is an armed ship disguised to look like an unarmed passenger liner or freighter.
> 
> \- Letters of Marque (and Reprisal) are authorisations given by a government to a private citizen or craft, essentially licensing them to act like a pirate without being charged as one, so long as they restrict themselves to only attacking 'legitimate' targets - i.e. real pirates, or ships from a nation that is at war with the issuing country. This does not always work; a lot of people hanged as pirates in the past were operating under letters of marque. Luckily for Duo and Solo, they have no interest whatsoever in attacking innocents, and not even the Republic of Haven would execute them for capturing pirates. (...Probably.)
> 
> German-to-English translations:  
> Todsense = Deathscythe (yes, Solo and Duo just ran the name of their ship through a bunch of translators when they were setting up their fake transponder IDs. We make no guarantees of grammatical accuracy.)  
> Großadmiral = Grand Admiral  
> Herzog = Duke  
> Kapitän der Sterne = Captain of the Stars, usually shortened to just Kapitän  
> Freiherr / Freifrau = Baron / Baroness


	4. Two main characters meet for the first time...

“Go ahead and say it, Rashid.”

The large man didn’t turn around, continuing to glower at the viewscreen from the captain’s chair. “Say what, Master Quatre?”

The slender young man occupying the second chair at the navigation station smiled, mouth half-hidden behind one hand. “You told me so.”

“Unfortunately, pointing that out does not help matters.”

Quatre sighed, blue eyes darkening with regret. “Neither does complaining that I was **nearly** right about having the speed to dodge ambushes instead of needing to wait for an escort. If they hadn’t had that third ship…”

Rashid scowled. “The need to box in fast targets is precisely why pirates often plan to have a third ship positioned in an inconvenient location.”

“I’ll bear that in mind in future.”

 _If we have a future,_ went unspoken as the other crewmembers on the bridge exchanged looks. If these were the more rational breed of pirates, out to steal cargo without getting the sort of price on their heads that wholesale murder would cause, they could be back on course in just a few hours, slightly poorer but otherwise unharmed. If they were the sort of pirates who went for ransom and extortion, Lord Quatre Winner, only son and heir to the Winner barony - and substantial fortune - would make a tempting prize indeed, and their return home could be indefinitely delayed. If they were the sort who spaced entire crews and stole the ship whole…

// _Sandrock_ , strike your wedge and turn off the damn distress call before we turn it off for you,// a harsh voice snapped over the com.

“Orders, Master Quatre?” Rashid asked gloomily.

“…I really do not like the idea of capitulating meekly to their demands,” he said in a voice that was almost mild.

“Neither do I.”

“I’m seriously considering redesigning the _Sandrock II_ to be armed,” Quatre went on, eyes narrowing slightly. “Heavily armed.”

“Hauptman Yards have already laid down the keel,” Rashid pointed out, scratching his beard thoughtfully. “They’ll charge some fairly stiff penalty payments if you change the plans now.”

“It’s not like I can’t afford it.”

“True.”

//Listen, you fucking idiotic merchanters, we’re going to get you one way or another! How about you opt for the way that lets you keep all your atmosphere inside your hull, huh? The longer you piss around like this, the worse it’s gonna be!//

Quatre grimaced and rubbed at his eyes, posture wilting slightly in defeat. “Well. I suppose--”

“There’s another ship!” Auda announced, leaning over his console. “Outsystem from us, just lit up its drives.”

“Another pirate?” Rashid asked.

“No… it looks like a cargo hauler,” Auda said slowly, looking puzzled. “They’ve brought up their transponder too; Silesian registry, says it’s the _Doodszeis_ …? Who names a ship ‘dude’-something?”

Quatre spun his chair around, hitting keys on his screen to echo Auda’s. “Are they close enough to the hyper limit to get away if they run now? Try to signal them!”

“They’re nearly on the limit, but they’re moving in-system! What the hell do they think they’re doing?!”

A new voice, young and cheerful, came from the com. //Oh hey there, _Sandrock_. You’re from Manticore, right? How you doing?//

“Put me through,” Quatre snapped, and leaned forward as Abdul opened an outgoing channel. “ _Doodszeis_ , reverse course and get out-system now! We’re under attack--”

//Belay that noise, _Sandrock_ ,// the pirate snarled. //And you, _Doodszeis_ , just keep coming this way nice and quiet if you know what’s good for you.//

//Hm?// The young voice was blithely unworried. //I’m not seeing a problem here…//

“Then I suggest you take a better look at your sensors, _Doodszeis_ , because I don’t know about you but I can see three armed ships with bad intentions,” Quatre said sarcastically.

//Like I said,// he drawled. //Still not seeing a problem.//

_…what?_

“Um,” Auda said in an uncertain voice, pointing at something on his screen. “That’s, um, a **lot** of acceleration for a cargo hauler. Like, **really** a lot…”

//Oh!// A laugh. //Oops, sorry, wrong transponder. Well, right transponder for sneaking up on people, but since you guys were nice enough to show up without us having to play bait ourselves… Hello. My name is Duo Maxwell, and this is the Sweeper Q-ship--//

Alarms went off on Auda’s board and the symbol representing the oncoming ship was ringed in red as targeting systems came online.

//-- _Deathscythe_ ,// Duo finished, voice darkly amused.

Quatre blinked, leaning back from his console. “…Rashid?”

“Yes, Master Quatre?”

“Are we still worried?”

“I don’t think so, Master Quatre. I’ve… heard of them.”

Auda spluttered. “I don’t believe this-- Master Quatre, one of the pirate ships just reversed course and is trying to run for it!”

//Ooh, somebody’s heard of us,// Duo chortled over the com. //Don’t get your knickers in a twist, guys, we’ll catch up to you once we’re done with your friends.//

\----------

Several hours later, Quatre finally got to see the owner of the insanely cheerful voice that had been taunting and insulting the pirates through the entire fight. (And singing. His rendition of “Oops, I Shot You Again” had been particularly catchy.)

//Hey there!// Blinding white grin, laughing blue eyes, and an impractical waist-length braid of chestnut hair draped over the shoulder of his vacuum suit. //You guys need any help with repairs or anything?//

“I was about to ask you that myself,” Quatre admitted. “We’re fine, but it looked like you took a couple of hits?”

//Nothing serious,// Duo shrugged, //and we’ve got some support ships on the way. The boss lets me use Sweepers resources for my little hobby so long as we at least try to pay our own way by salvaging our opponents--//

A loud ‘bleek!’ from off-screen distracted him, and he looked to one side. //Oi, Shini, what’s the matter?//

A dark-furred treecat, nearly black, jumped up onto the back of his chair and picked up his braid with one true-hand, whipping it around to hit him across the mouth. // _hiss!_ //

//Come on, we got two of them!//

Quatre sat back in his chair, watching in bemusement as ‘Shini’ apparently scolded his human for letting the third pirate ship escape. _Is that… a treecat-sized atmosphere suit?_

//We’ll get them later!//

// _chirp!_ //

“Don’t let me interrupt your little domestic discussion,” Quatre said eventually, starting to grin.

Duo snickered. //’Scuse us, Shinigami has his opinions and wants them heard.//

“The only good pirate is a dead pirate?”

//Oh, no, not quite. The only good pirate is a **captured** pirate, because then you get bounties, and usually there’s less damage and better salvage. Mercenary little bastard.//

//Bleek!// The treecat nodded emphatically.

//‘Yes I am mercenary, because someone’s got to keep an eye on our running expenses,’// Duo translated cheerfully, rolling his eyes.

Shinigami launched into a long (loud) speech delivered entirely in bleeking, scolding, hissing and chittering, with accompanying true-hand gestures that turned out to be surprisingly expressive. Quatre formed the impression that the treecat was explaining that if he left it up to Duo, the human would have blown their potential salvage fees out of space and the _Deathscythe_ would be left with no funds to continue their… had Duo called it a ‘hobby’? The hand-gesture for ‘large explosion leaving no trace’ was particularly emphatic.

“…If I understand you correctly,” Quatre interrupted eventually, “a reliable source of income other than salvage would be helpful?”

//Bleek!// Shinigami nodded again.

 _Not the person I expected a reply from, but never mind._ “Well. If you and Captain Maxwell would like to visit my ship for dinner, I have a business proposition that you might find interesting…” Trailing off, he raised one eyebrow inquiringly.

//Business proposition?// Duo asked, answering the raised eyebrow with one of his own.

Quatre grinned. “I have a newly personal appreciation of the value of anti-piracy operations, and an accountant who can get just about **anything** approved as a tax deduction.”

Shinigami grinned, showing a truly fearsome array of teeth. // **Bleek**.//

  



End file.
